93Queen

Screenings & Events

About The Film

While Brooklyn may be home to modern hipster culture; it remains the home of the country’s largest ultraorthodox Jewish community. Insular Borough Park maintains its own set of conservative religious guidelines, including the mandate that women never show their hair or bare legs in public or come into physical contact with non-familial men, even something as simple as a handshake. And yet, in times of medical emergencies such as childbirth, these women must rely on the urgent and often intimate care of men in the religious community’s volunteer ambulance Emergency Medical Service. Rachel “Ruchie” Freier—a mother of six, a lawyer, and force of nature—wants to change this. She and a crew of dutiful yet revolutionary Hasidic women unite to create the first neighborhood women’s ambulance service, but their success is far from guaranteed.

93QUEEN charts the path of these bold, tenacious women as they battle a divided community. Challenge after challenge—from securing EMT training and equipment, to overcoming institutional resistance and shunning—they come to terms with the sacrifices and compromises required to render their dream of a female Emergency Medical Service corps a reality. You will come away from this film with a new understanding and respect for these gutsy, capable, path-breaking women.

Guest Director

Paula Eiselt is an independent filmmaker and graduate of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Her background as an Orthodox woman allowed her unprecedented access to the Orthodox community in Borough Park. Eiselt leveraged her 93QUEEN full-length documentary debut to guarantee women were employed in key roles from production to editing, to a soundtrack by Emmy-winning composer Laura Karpman and Hasidic vocalist Perl Wolfe.